BEIJING: China warned Taiwan Friday that relying on the United States to help it seek independence “will inevitably hit a wall,” as Beijing took aim at a Pacific tour by the self-ruled island’s President Lai Ching-te this week.
Lai’s trip, which has included two stops on US soil, has drawn a barrage of criticism from China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and opposes any international recognition of the island.
Lai this week held a phone call with US Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, which also angered Beijing.
“Seeking independence with the help of the United States will inevitably hit a wall, and using Taiwan to contain China is doomed to fail,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Friday.
He added that China has “lodged solemn representations” with Washington and urged it to “stop emptying and gutting the one-China principle.”
Asked about Lai’s comment on Friday that he was “confident” that Taiwan would deepen cooperation with incoming US president Donald Trump, Lin warned the United States to “cease meddling in Taiwan-related affairs.”
During a Friday press conference, Lai also urged democracies to be “more united” to counter growing authoritarianism.
He also insisted that Taiwan and China were “not subordinate to each other.”
Asked to respond to the latter, Lin said that “separatist activities... are the biggest threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
“No matter what they say or do, they cannot change the objective fact that Taiwan is part of China, nor can they stop the historical trend that China... will inevitably reunify,” he added.
China warns Taiwan relying on US for independence will ‘inevitably hit a wall’
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China warns Taiwan relying on US for independence will ‘inevitably hit a wall’
- Beijing takes aim at a Pacific tour by the self-ruled island’s President Lai Ching-te
- Lai’s trip, which has included two stops on US soil, draws criticism from China
Hong Kong court convicts 7 men, including former lawmaker, of rioting during 2019 protests
- Prosecutors accused former legislator Lam Cheuk-ting and the six other defendants of provoking members of a group of about 100 armed men
- The men claimed to be protecting their homeland in Yuen Long, a residential district in Hong Kong’s New Territories
Prosecutors accused former legislator Lam Cheuk-ting and the six other defendants of provoking members of a group of about 100 men armed with wooden poles and metal rods who attacked protesters and bystanders at a train station. The men, all clad in white shirts, in contrast with the black worn by protesters, claimed to be protecting their homeland in Yuen Long, a residential district in Hong Kong’s New Territories.
Dozens of people, including Lam, were injured in the violence, a key chapter that escalated the protest movement as the public criticized police for their delayed response. The landmark ruling could shape the city’s historical narrative of the incident.
Judge Stanley Chan ruled that Lam was not acting as a mediator as he had claimed, but rather was trying to exploit the situation for political gain.
He said Lam’s words directed at the white-shirted men had “fanned the flames.”
The seven defendants are expected to be sentenced in February. Several members of the public sitting in the gallery cried after hearing the verdicts. Others waved at the defendants, with one shouting to Lam, “Hang in there, Ting!” Lam appeared to be at ease.
The prosecution alleged the defendants had either berated the white-shirted men, used obscene hand gestures, hurled objects or shot jets of water at them with a hosepipe.
The defendants had pleaded not guilty to the rioting charge.
During the trial, Lam said he chose to go to Yuen Long because he hoped his then position as a lawmaker could pressure the police to act quickly. He said he could not leave the scene while fellow residents were in danger. Some defendants who targeted the white-shirted men with a hosepipe argued that they were just trying to stop the attackers from advancing.
Chan, the judge, rejected the arguments of some defendants that they acted in self-defense.
The 2019 protests were sparked by a proposed extradition law that would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to the mainland for trial. The government withdrew the bill, but the protesters widened their demands to include direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.
The social movement was the biggest challenge to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In response, Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020, leading to the arrest of many activists. Others were silenced or went into exile.
In November, Lam was sentenced to six years and nine months in jail in the city’s biggest national security case.
More than 10,000 people were arrested in connection to the protests for various crimes, such as rioting and participating in an unauthorized assembly. About 10 white-shirted men were convicted in other cases related to the mob violence in July 2019, local media reported.
Taliban minister’s killing renews concerns over Daesh threat in Afghanistan
- Khalil Haqqani was killed by a suicide bomber inside his ministry’s compound
- He is the most high-profile Taliban casualty since the group’s return to power
KABUL: The killing of Afghanistan’s Refugee Minister Khalil Haqqani, has raised new concerns about a Daesh threat in the country, analysts said on Thursday, as the group claimed responsibility for the suicide blast that killed the Taliban official in Kabul.
Khalil Haqqani was a senior leader of a powerful faction within the Taliban called the Haqqani network. He became a minister when the Taliban returned to power after US-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Haqqani was the brother of the famous guerrilla leader and the Haqqani network’s founder Jalaluddin Haqqani, who fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. His nephew, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the current interior minister.
Daesh-run media said on Wednesday evening that the explosion that killed the minister hours earlier at the Ministry of Refugees compound in central Kabul was carried out by its suicide attacker.
The Taliban later confirmed in a statement that Daesh was behind the attack, which killed and injured several others.
“(Haqqani) was a major figure whose politico-military career spanned decades and whose network and contracts transcended not just political divides across the Afghan spectrum but also extended deep into the tribal areas of Pakistan,” Ahmad Waleed Kakar, analyst and founder of The Afghan Eye media platform, told Arab News.
Coming from a tribe inhabiting the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Haqqani’s family has been influential in resolving tribal conflicts and addressing issues at the community level.
After the 2001 US invasion ousted the Taliban from their first stint in power, the faction was responsible for many attacks during the movement’s 20-year insurgency against foreign troops and influence in the country.
In 2011, the US classified Haqqani as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, offering a $5 million bounty on his head.
“His killing will be a huge political blow to the Taliban given his history of pragmatic mediation in the movement,” Kakar said.
“Whilst Daesh have been unable to meaningfully consolidate their control over specific geography in Afghanistan or pose a military threat to the Taliban, their limited presence means they remain able to exploit faults in Taliban security and target key figures.”
A regional affiliate of Daesh, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, has been a rival group to the Taliban since it emerged in Afghanistan a decade ago.
Following the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021, ISKP has continued its campaign against the new Taliban regime. While deadly blasts have become rare since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, last year ISKP claimed the explosion that killed the Taliban governor of northern Balkh province. A few months later, the group assassinated the acting governor of Badakhshan in Afghanistan’s northeast.
Haqqani is the most high-profile casualty of an attack in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power.
“The killing of Khalil Rahman Haqqani is a deeply tragic incident, not only for the Taliban but also for Afghans and the international community. Mr. Haqqani was widely regarded as a pragmatic and moderate leader within the Taliban. Following the collapse of the republic, he was seen in Kabul, personally assuring former leaders of the republic about their safety,” Tameem Bahiss, a Kabul-based security analyst, told Arab News.
“While the Taliban have made significant strides in weakening ISKP’s presence in Afghanistan, this attack on Mr. Haqqani will undoubtedly heighten concerns among the Taliban leadership, leaving them more alarmed and cautious.”
Biden commutes roughly 1,500 sentences and pardons 39 people in biggest single-day act of clemency
- The commutations are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released
- It is customary for a president to grant mercy at the end of his term, using the power of the office to wipe away records or end prison terms
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to a tally kept by The Associated Press.
Biden said he would be taking more steps in the weeks ahead and would continue to review clemency petitions. The second largest single-day act of clemency was by Barack Obama, with 330, shortly before leaving office in 2017.
“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement. “As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”
The clemency follows a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to pardon broad swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes over in January. He’s also weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons to those who investigated Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and are facing possible retribution when he takes office.
Those pardoned Thursday had been convicted of nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses and turned their lives around, White House lawyers said. They include a woman who led emergency response teams during natural disasters; a church deacon who has worked as an addiction counselor and youth counselor; a doctoral student in molecular biosciences; and a decorated military veteran.
The president had previously issued 122 commutations and 21 other pardons. He’s also broadly pardoned those convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia, and pardoned former US service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and 34 other lawmakers are urging the president to pardon environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who was imprisoned or under house arrest for three years because of a contempt of court charge related to his work representing Indigenous farmers in a lawsuit against Chevron.
Others are advocating for Biden to commute the sentences of federal death row prisoners. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, paused federal executions. Biden had said on the campaign trail in 2020 that he wanted to end the death penalty but he never did, and now, with Trump coming back into office, it’s likely executions will resume. During his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented number of federal executions, carried out during the height of the pandemic.
More pardons are coming before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20, but it’s not clear whether he’ll take action to guard against possible prosecution by Trump, an untested use of the power. The president has been taking the idea seriously and has been thinking about it for as much as six months – before the presidential election – but has been concerned about the precedent it would set, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
But those who received the pardons would have to accept them. New California Sen. Adam Schiff, who was the chairman of the congressional committee that investigated the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, said such a pardon from Biden would be “unnecessary,” and that the president shouldn’t be spending his waning days in office worrying about this.
A president has the power to both pardon, in which a person is relieved of guilt and punishment, or commute a sentence, which reduces or eliminates the punishment but doesn’t exonerate the wrongdoing. It’s customary for a president to grant mercy at the end of his term, using the power of the office to wipe away records or end prison terms.
Before pardoning his son, Biden had repeatedly pledged not to do so. He said in a statement explaining his reversal that the prosecution had been poisoned by politics. The decision prompted criminal justice advocates and lawmakers to put additional public pressure on the administration to use that same power for everyday Americans. It wasn’t a very popular move; only about 2 in 10 Americans approved of his decision, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Russia will ‘definitely’ respond to Ukraine ATACMS strike: Kremlin
- Russia’s defense ministry accuses Ukraine of firing the missiles in an overnight attack on an airfield in the port city of Taganrog
- Both sides have escalated aerial attacks in recent months as Russia’s troops advance on the battlefield
MOSCOW: Russia will “definitely” respond to a Ukrainian attack on a southern airfield using US-supplied ATACMS missiles, the Kremlin said Thursday.
President Vladimir Putin has previously threatened to launch its new hypersonic ballistic missile, named Oreshnik, at the center of Kyiv if Ukraine does not halt its attacks on Russian territory using US-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Russia’s defense ministry on Wednesday accused Ukraine of firing the missiles in an overnight attack on an airfield in the port city of Taganrog in the southern Rostov region.
A response “will follow when, and in a way that is deemed, appropriate. It will definitely follow,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He did not provide details of how Russia might retaliate.
Washington only recently gave Kyiv permission to fire ATACMS on Russian territory, following months of requests.
The United States warned Wednesday that Russia could be preparing to fire Oreshnik missiles at Ukraine again.
The US warning was “based on an intelligence assessment that it’s possible that Russia could use this Oreshnik missile in the coming days,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists.
Both sides have escalated aerial attacks in recent months as Russia’s troops advance on the battlefield.
Russia’s defense ministry said Thursday its troops had captured the tiny settlement of Zarya in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Indian troops kill seven Maoist rebels
- More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
- The insurgency has drastically shrunk in recent years and a crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year
RAIPUR, India: Indian troops shot dead seven Maoist rebels in a fierce gunbattle on Thursday, as security forces step up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, as the Maoist insurgents are known, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
The insurgency has drastically shrunk in recent years and a crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, according to government data.
The latest gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Bastar region in Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“So far seven bodies of Maoists, who were in their uniforms, have been recovered during search operations,” police inspector general P. Sunderraj said, adding that the toll was likely to rise.
Indian home minister Amit Shah warned the Maoist rebels in September to surrender or face an “all-out” assault, saying the government expected to quash the insurgency by early 2026.
The Naxalites, named after the district where their armed campaign began in 1967, were inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
They demanded land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents, and made inroads in a number of remote communities across India’s east and south.
The movement gained in strength and numbers until the early 2000s when New Delhi deployed tens of thousands of security personnel against the rebels in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
Authorities have since invested millions of dollars in local infrastructure and social projects.
